Event Abstract Back to Event Assessing the role of the motor cortex in visuomotor memory Hesam Alavi1*, Stephan Riek2, Welber Marinovic2 and Tim Carroll2 1 The University of Queensland, HMS, Australia 2 The University of Queensland, Australia Reaching to an object requires translation of visual information about its position into motor commands that bring the hand to the correct location in space. Humans can learn new internal maps for such visuomotor transformations when environmental conditions change, such as when the apparent position of the limb endpoint is rotated in virtual reality experiments. Moreover, the rate at which people learn to compensate such visuomotor rotations is higher if they have previously adapted to the same perturbation; a phenomenon known as “savings”. Although multiple brain areas are known to contribute to visuomotor adaptation, including the cerebellum, motor cortex and posterior parietal cortex, the neural mechanisms that underlie savings are unclear. Here we used cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to study the role of the motor cortex (M1) in retention and savings of visuomotor learning. Fifty-one participants learned to compensate a 30° visuomotor rotation that was introduced either gradually (in 0.3° increments) or abruptly over 300 trials. They then performed 60 trials without rotation, to “washout’ the adaptation, before abrupt re-exposure to the same 30° visuomotor rotation to assess savings. Cathodal tDCS stimulation or sham stimulation was applied to the left motor cortex during initial adaptation (~12 min). As cathodal tDCS decreases neuronal excitability and can impair memory formation, we predicted that savings should be impaired by stimulation if motor cortex is important for retention of the visuomotor memory. A main effect for stimulation (F(1,47)=4.25,p=0.04), confirmed that mean error in the first 12 savings trials was greater in tDCS than sham groups. The results show that the motor cortex is involved in the retention of visuomotor memory and contributes to faster re-learning of previously encountered visuomotor skills. Keywords: Motor Cortex, tDCS, visuomotor rotation, savings, Visuomotor memory Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Memory and Learning Citation: Alavi H, Riek S, Marinovic W and Carroll T (2015). Assessing the role of the motor cortex in visuomotor memory. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00011 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Mr. Hesam Alavi, The University of Queensland, HMS, Brisbane, Australia, hesamalavi27@yahoo.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Hesam Alavi Stephan Riek Welber Marinovic Tim Carroll Google Hesam Alavi Stephan Riek Welber Marinovic Tim Carroll Google Scholar Hesam Alavi Stephan Riek Welber Marinovic Tim Carroll PubMed Hesam Alavi Stephan Riek Welber Marinovic Tim Carroll Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.